I can’t honestly say I remember a bad Thanksgiving dish, although I did hear there were some turkeys this year who had salmonella… yikes. If there is a bad memory of a dish, it’s covered with recollections of Cowboys’ football and turkey and dressing and family. Maybe you can’t always forget the worst memories, but covering them with good ones seems to be a successful tactic. And, if I was saying that something was the worst dish I ever had, it would sort of defeat the whole idea behind Thanksgiving.

I got this idea from Linda G. Hill here and thought it was pretty cool. So here’s my one-liner and y’all should go check out her page by clicking the link above, for more one-liners and some more great content.

Inside my medium-sized treasure box, there are several smaller boxes. The smallest of these smaller boxes holds the most valuable piece of treasure out of my entire treasure hoard.

I’m not sure how to write how much the content of this little box means to me other than by referring to one of my favorite books: The Hobbit. Thorin Oakenshield treasures the arkenstone above all the riches of Erebor. Well what’s inside this small box is my arkenstone, although I hope it doesn’t make me go all crazy!

Inside the box, is a wedding band. I’m getting married in a few months to the most wonderful woman in the world. You can read about how we met here (link).

Let me tell you a little bit about how I acquired this treasure. If you’ve never been ring shopping, allow me to pass along this bit of advice. The people who try to sell you a ring are going to seem really nice. They’ll ask what your price range is, which wasn’t a lot for me, because heck, I hadn’t even graduated college yet. By the way guys, I strongly suggest you take your lady with you to buy a ring because she’s going to want to like it if she has to wear it for the rest of her life.

So they’ll ask your price range and then they’ll show you and your beloved a ring that falls into that range. She’ll try it on, look in a mirror and talk about it, for less than two minutes, and then take it off. Then the salesperson will show her a second one, which your girlfriend will LOVE. But guess what? That sucker ain’t anywhere close to your price range. It’s a hostile place to go in to! Believe me. Now she won’t try on any other ring that’s even half as beautiful as the expensive one, all thanks to the salesperson, who gets her to try on the expensive one after each new ring she tries. It is a dangerous cycle my friend.

Anyway, I survived the perils of ring shopping and now the wedding band sits in its box, waiting for the day when it will finally find its home on the most beautiful finger of the most beautiful girl in the world. Sorry I’m a romantic!

Why do I keep it in the treasure chest?

Well of course the wedding band has monetary value, so the treasure chest is naturally a good place to keep it. But what we truly treasure, we keep in our hearts, like the promise I’ll make when I place the band on the ring finger of my fiancé. The band is the symbol of that promise and that love, and so I reckon the treasure chest is a bit like my heart.

I’ve updated my site a little so I thought I’d give you guys the rundown. I’ve essentially added a photography gallery so feel free to check that out on my home page.

I’ve also added a page (Nights at the Round Table, located on the top menu) dedicated to starting a writers group. So if you’re in the process of writing a novel, shorts, poetry, songs or whatever please check out that page and if you are interested or have questions feel free to contact me.

It’s basically a group where people can bounce ideas around with their peers for honest review so that hopefully we can all grow as writers. So that’s the site update. As always, feedback is appreciated.

You cannot just up and die on me now! Don’t be so droopy. Have some water. You have to live just long enough for me to find you a replacement. I can’t have some brown-leafed piece of botany ruining the vibe of my sitting room.

I know right now it may seem like you have nothing going for you in your life. No other plants to talk to, no animals to look at and not very much sunshine to soak in. You’ll probably think no one even cares you’re dying. But I do. If you just hang in there for another day, and another chance at turning green, I promise it will be worth it.

You have to hope for a better day. I mean sure there will always be highs and lows in anyone’s life but if everyone just up and died when things went bad, I don’t think we’d last very long as a species. I can’t believe I’m talking to a plant. What would you tell a plant that’s dying?

I think I started playing basketball when I was 2-years-old. Seriously, I started by shooting hoops on one of those Fisher Price children’s basketball goals. I was somewhere between 8 and 10-years-old when I went to my first Dallas Mavericks game. My brother and I became MFFLs (Mavs Fans For Life).

Luckily for us, we became fans during an era when the franchise rose to its height. And the first pinnacle of that era was in 2011.

The Mavs playoff run in 2011 was literally like a dream. We saw the Mavs erase 15 point deficits in five minutes, more than once! We saw them blow right past one of the NBA’s premier franchises (sorry Phil Jackson). We saw Shawn Marion play great defense, and block a crucial shot on one of the best offensive players in the league (sorry Kevin Durant). We saw Dirk knock down clutch free-throws after an opponent tried holding his hand to psych him out (sorry Thabo).

And then came the Championship. Oh glorious moment! I went to Game 3 of the NBA Finals courtesy of my good friend. I can honestly say it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. In this, the final series, we saw Dirk play through illness. We remember little JJ Barea from Puerto Rico move into the starting lineup and helping to turn the tide of the series. And oh my goodness I remember Jason “The JET” Terry pulling up from waaaay beyond three and knocking down a trey in the face of the so-called king of basketball.

It was one of the happiest moments of my life when the great Dirk Nowitzki hoisted the Larry O’Brien trophy. Courage, loyalty and effort can take you a lot of places in life, and I think that’s what the 2011 Dallas Mavs showed a lot of people.

Why do I keep this magazine?

Because it reminds me of a good time and a lot of good memories and having the magazine for sure helps to knock the dust off of some of those recollections. It also reminds me what it takes to be a champion. And hey, I’d like to get it signed someday.

A lot of things can happen in one second. A buzzer-beating shot can be made in a basketball game. You can say “hello” in one second, or you can say, “I do.” You can decide to travel somewhere amazing in one second. You could write the letter “h,” or click the mouse, or change the world with the push of a button. Or you can do nothing.

Whatever you decide to do in one second, the seconds will grow into minutes, and the minutes will turn to hours. Then the hours will melt into days, the days into months, and the months into years. What you choose to do in one second, can alter the course of your years.

It has been said that life is a vapor. Look at the vast frame of time, completely out of our control and prerogative, and you realize how short your time on earth actually is. Unfortunately, I don’t think many people realize this truth until late in their lives. I reckon if we realized how short of a time we have here, we’d realize the true significance of every choice and every second.